


However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

by hasitsclaws



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Discussion of Abortion, Dubious Consent, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2268570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hasitsclaws/pseuds/hasitsclaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Where to, princess?” Seth asks, and when she looks at him his eyes are shining, lashes fluttering from the glare of the afternoon sun.</p><p>Kate pulls the cheap, heart-shaped sunglasses she picked up back in Centro down over her face. “Any place that isn’t Mexico,” she says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

 

_June:_

Here they are, back in this place, and it hasn't gotten any easier, not even when they learn that Gods die the same as humans do.

 

 

_July:_

Kate can't feel her hands anymore, and her shoulder stings; she opens her eyes to bleary light of dusk and finds she's alone in the room, but the sheets next to her are still cold.

 

 

_August:_

Seth asks her if she's feeling okay, and the world spins; her shoulder still stings and the inside of her thighs feel sticky–- when she looks down they're covered in blood.

She closes her legs shut tight so he won't see.

 

 

_September:_

"I fucking hate Mexico," Seth says, wiping culebra guts off of his face with the back of his sleeve.

Kate looks up at the smoke curling on the horizon, pitch black and blotting out the sky as snakes crawl near her feet. "Me, too," she says.

"Let's get the fuck out here," Seth answers.

 

 

_October:_

It’s officially fall when Kate and Seth finally go back to the States.

Getting past the border isn’t hard– they join in with a group of illegal immigrants and are smuggled over in the back of a truck that’s supposed to be carrying a tomato shipment. It’s dark inside the trailer, smells like sweat and piss and rotten fruit.

Seth holds Kate’s hand the whole time, and she pretends not to feel him shaking.

“ _Adónde vas_?” asks a young mother, holding her crying baby against her chest as she glances at Kate with a soft kind of sadness in her deep brown eyes.           

“ _No sabemos_ ,” Kate whispers back, and Seth squeezes her hand so hard that she feels her knuckles pop.  

 

The driver drops them off just outside of Sierra Vista, and Seth pays the man with a wad of stolen hundred dollar bills.           

Kate tries not to think about how they got those, about the gun in her hands and perspiration on her hairline as she watched Seth empty the register, a look of pure nostalgia on his face. She tries not to think about the broken knuckles, the scraped shins, their ruined clothes from that night at the Twister and how they buried them in the desert under six feet of sand. She tries not to think about wooden stakes, or yellow eyes, or her bloody underwear flushed down the toilet so that Seth wouldn’t see.           

“ _Adónde vas_?” the mother asks Kate again as they stand there on the cracked asphalt, watching the truck drive away.           

This time it’s Seth who answers the woman, words the same as Kate’s.  

 

 _October twelfth._            

Kate reads the date again and again on the old calendar hanging up in the convenience store they’ve made a pit stop in, her eyes threatening to water.           

Scott would be twenty-one today.           

Kate would probably be taking him out to buy a cheap bottle of tequila and lotto tickets despite her better judgment. He’d be in college for graphic design, home just to celebrate and they’d drink at the old park they used to swing in with their mom as kids, scratch a quarter over rub-away film and see if luck was on their side. Maybe if they won a million dollars they could finally go to London like they always used to talk about, see Big Ben and eat fish and chips by the London Eye.           

“Pepsi or Coke?” Seth asks, snapping Kate out of her thoughts.           

She looks up to see him holding up two distinct bottles, narrows her eyes a little before pointing to the ladder. Seth smirks, knows her all too well by now. He puts the Pepsi back in the cooler, strides up to the counter and pays for the bottle of Coke and a bag of oyster crackers, two packages of Hostess cupcakes and a box of fruit flavored tums. Kate takes the plastic sack from him after they’re all rung-up, swings it against her side as they walk back out into the sun and marvels at how the big red _thank you_ ’s printed across the bag’s surface are in English instead of Spanish.           

“Where to, princess?” Seth asks, and when she looks at him his eyes are shining, lashes fluttering from glare of the afternoon.           

Kate pulls the cheap, heart-shaped sunglasses she picked up back in Centro two years ago down over her face. “Any place that isn’t Mexico,” she says.           

Seth chuckles, stops them in the middle of the street and wraps his arms around her waist, pushing his face into her neck. His breath is wet and warm on her skin and Kate shivers, fitting her fingertips against the nape of Seth’s collar.           

“We’re gonna be okay,” Seth whispers, and Kate almost believes him.

 

Seth gets them a motel room down the street from the convenience store, one queen bed the way it’s always been.

They’ve been together for a four years and four months now, were traveling around Mexico aimlessly until just six hours ago. There was never a destination, never a time limit. They just drove and drove and drove, staying nights at backwater motels and rusty rest stops. It was like an endless world with just the two of them, their breath mingling in the small space between the driver and passenger seat. Kate marked the days into the leather of the dashboard with Seth’s old pocket knife, the one he admitted Richie had gotten him for his sixteenth birthday– _their_ birthday, a year and two-point-two hours apart.

At first it was as bad as would be expected, living with a total stranger. Most days Kate wanted to hate Seth for what he’d done to her and her family, but the tragedy she’d shared with him wouldn’t let her. She’d go to yell at him, call him a liar, a bastard, a _thief_. And then she’d see the loss in his eyes, the grief, and she’d fit herself around his body like a second skin and hold him until it all stopped, until there was nothing but the sound of their hearts beating together in a stuttered, broken rhythm.

Because the good thing about Seth is that he has a big mouth, likes the sound of his own voice. Kate’s never been much of a talker, even if she knows all the right words. So it was good to hear Seth talk about his golden days, tell story after story of antic-filled pranks and heists, his breath blending into the blur of the road like an old, fuzzy song on the radio.

“Richie killed our dad,” he finally admitted one bone-dry afternoon; they were parked by the ocean and Kate was breathing in the salt of the air, eyes snapping open as she glanced at Seth with bewilderment. “That’s when the, uh, y’know, started…”

By _y’know_ Seth means panic attacks.

He has them when things get particularly bad, when he misses his brother so much that Kate can almost hear Seth’s lungs giving out. It always starts slow and then suddenly he’s sobbing and gasping in her lap, and Kate always tells him to breathe, just _breathe_ while she strokes his hair and kisses his forehead and waits for it all to end.

 Sometimes she considers herself lucky that all the horror she’s been through only comes in the form of nightmares, that since that first night together Seth’s made sure to sleep in the bed with her so he can press her down with his solid, warm weight and tell her she’s okay when she wakes up screaming. _You’re not there anymore, baby girl,_ he always says. _You’re here. With me. You’re safe, Kate. We’re safe._

And maybe that’s why it makes sense that after their first six months together, when two Culebras walked into a bar, both Seth and Kate weren’t afraid to do what was needed. Again and again and again. Which means it didn’t take long for them to make a name for themselves, for Richie and Santanico to come calling.

“Where do you think you’re going with all of this, brother?” Richie had asked.

“Nowhere,” Seth said. “And that’s the point.”

Kate wonders what’s a better nowhere than a Motel Eight, Kate curled up into Seth’s side as they watch television, sweat cooling on their skin.

Seth dips his fingers down between Kate’s legs leisurely, spreading arousal and come out along the crease of her thigh and sucking soft kisses into her neck. She’s too bone-tired to tell him to stop even though she’s still sensitive from her last orgasm, toes curling against the stained bed sheets.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Seth asks, same thing he always asks at times like these; Kate likes it because it’s such an old-fashioned thing for such a modern criminal like him to say.

“My momma made a mobile for me when she was pregnant,” Kate murmurs, stiffens when Seth’s fingers slip up inside of her and back out before drawing a wet line up her stomach, hand resting there just below her breasts. “It had the solar system on it.”

“Explains why you like the planets so much,” Seth whispers, probably remembering all the times they sat on the hood of the car and Kate pointed out each planet and nebula when the sky opened up and they could be found.

Kate bites her lip, rolls over to face him and traps his legs between hers. “Maybe I’m just from outer-space,” she says, leaning down to kiss him.

“That explains it _all_ then,” Seth mumbles, hisses out a curse as Kate sinks slowly down onto his cock, holds her hips to keep her steady as she starts messily fucking him, skin slick and sliding off of each other’s.

“Does it?” Kate asks.

Seth nods, motion staving off when he moans low in his throat, eyes slipping closed and head falling back. “You’re too good to be from Earth.”

“So I’m an alien then?” Kate asks, a little squeak building up in her chest as she grinds her clit against Seth’s pelvis, his hands sliding from her hips to her ass so he can tease her with his fingertips.

“No,” Seth rumbles, looking up at her with awe in his eyes. “You’re a goddamn angel.”

 

They go to some big fall festival up in Nebraska, ride a train all the way there now that they’ve decided to try and make their way into Canada, as far North as they can get from all of the shit going down in Mexico.

There’s a bonfire and tents full of crafts, big stands for warm cider and caramel apples. Kate munches happily on the latter while Seth takes a bathroom break; she checks her cell phone and sees ten missed calls. She knows they’re from the other hunters, that they’re begging her and Seth for help.

She also knows that one’s from Richie like there always is every Sunday (ironic, biblical clockwork), and that she’s going to delete her entire inbox before she ever has to hear the sound of his voice.

“You have caramel stuck to your cheek,” Seth says as he sits back down next to her, reaches across the small space between them and wipes the melted sugar away before sticking his finger in his mouth and sucking, lips stretching up in a soft smile.

“Do you ever think about what would’ve happened had you not let me come with you?” Kate asks, a sudden thought just bubbling up out of her like a cough.

Seth’s eyes snap open, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. It takes him a very long time to answer her, and when he does he says, “I’d be fucking dead without you.”

“You’d be fucking alive,” Kate retorts with a soft smile and roll of her eyes. “But, I love you, too.”

Sighing, Seth leans into her and presses their foreheads together. “How’s your shoulder?” he asks.

Nose wrinkling, Kate concentrates and tries not to wince at the acknowledgement of pain there, two matching pin-prick scars like the ones on Seth’s neck. “Better,” she says.

“Good,” Seth answers. “So where to next?”

“I wanna go on the Ferris wheel,” Kate answers. “Scott and I always liked those.”

For his part, Seth tries not to cringe at the sound of her brother’s name, but Kate can see the small, antsy twitch of his fingers anyways; she bites her cheek and tastes blood, having forgotten that names like _Scott_ and _Richie_ are forbidden now.

Preacher’s daughters are always very bad at upholding sanctity.

 

She wakes up screaming from another nightmare, Seth there to settle her down into the bed with a hand pressed gently to the soft swell her stomach.

“Richie,” Kate gasps, forgetting the cardinal rule twice in the same day.

“He’s not here,” Seth says.

“But he _was_ ,” Kate says, her words turning into a sob as she rolls into Seth’s embrace and her body starts to shake. “I saw him, and he– oh, _God_.”

“Easy, Katie,” Seth says, stroking her sides reassuringly. “It’s just us. He’s never going to touch you again. I promise.”

Kate shakes her head, cries a little harder when suddenly her stomach clenches. She breaks away from Seth and stumbles in the bathroom in time to vomit it all up into the toilet, acid burning at the back of her throat. Seth makes it in right after her, holds her hair back out of her face and rubs her back until everything’s out of her system.

Collapsing back against the floor, Kate lets her eyes slip closed as Seth gets her a glass of water, kneels there beside her as she sips at it and watches the world spin.

The first time she had sex with Seth it was six weeks after her eighteenth birthday– that was over a three and a half ago now, but she keeps feeling like they should’ve been doing this way longer before everything happened. Before they became so needy of each other that they have no idea what to do when the other’s not around.

Before Kate fucked his brother and got pregnant.

 

The first hunt they ever actively went on was a big disaster.

They’d estimated it would be a nest of ten and it ended up being a nest of twenty. Kate got her side ripped open and needed thirty staples. Seth got a concussion and a broken wrist, two bruised ribs.

Afterwards, sitting there in the hospital’s ICU, they just held each other. It was the first time they’d ever actively touched outside of nightmares and panic attacks. Both of them were crying and a little high from the morphine, and the words just came bubbling out. About Kate’s mom and dad and Scott. About Carlos and Santanico and Richie.

“I should have stopped it,” Seth said. “I should have _saved_ him.”

“There’s nothing you could do,” Kate whispered.

“He _left me_ ,” Seth sobbed.

“And I left Scott,” Kate said back. “We all make stupid decisions when our minds are clouded with things we don’t understand.”

After that things started quick. There were soft touches, softer words. There was sharing too much space, cold showers and sweaty bed sheets and nothing left to do but talk. Maybe the conversations would’ve been different had they both not witnessed the same things, been through Hell and back. Maybe they should’ve hated each other, should’ve left each other to rot out in the Mexican sun.

But they didn’t.

And the first time Kate kissed Seth that Christmas, no mistletoe provoking her, Seth kissed her back with everything he had.

 

They get to Canada and decide it’s not good enough.

The morning papers read about Mexico, about all the disease and famine and fires. There’s snakes slithering outside their motel room and Kate wakes up screaming every night, calling out Richie’s name but not because she wants him, far from.

Seth robs a small bank, Kate sitting out in the getaway car because her stomach’s starting to show and Seth’s absolutely freaking out, so smothering and overprotective that sometimes Kate could punch him right in his pretty, no-good face.

The whole heist only takes a few minutes, Seth jumping back into the passenger seat and telling her to drive with a bag full of cash and no Mountie sirens until they’ve already hit the freeway, Seth counting the money leisurely with his goblin mask pushed up on top of his head; Kate still thinks he’s stupid for finding the disguise funny since it’s Halloween.

Plane tickets for Ireland are cheaper than they thought, enough so that they’ve got a good two-thousand bucks left for when they touch ground at a foreign terminal.

It turns out Seth doesn’t like flying, gets jumpy and pissy when they take-off and experience turbulence, scooping up Kate’s hand in his and looking worriedly at her stomach. “I’m _fine_ ,” Kate sighs, rolling her eyes fondly. “Jesus, you’re gonna end up wrapping me in bubble-wrap by the time this is done, aren’t you.”

“Bet your ass I am,” Seth says, shivering when the plane finally levels out; he holds his breath for a moment before letting it go in a long hiss. “We’ve fought goddamn _vampires_ and lived– I ain’t losing you to some shitty plane crash.”

“We’re not gonna crash,” Kate snickers. “Calm down, you big baby.”

Seth makes a face at her, and Kate settles back in her seat with another laugh, keeping hold of his hand to reassure him.

“Y’know,” Seth says a few hours later, when the plane’s quiet and everyone else is asleep. “When I asked where to, I didn’t think you’d _actually_ say goddamn _Ireland_. Why there, of all places?”

“It’s close,” Kate shrugs.

“Close to where?” Seth asks.

“To Scott,” she answers.

 

 

_November:_

They get a little house just outside of Tullow, paint the spare bedroom a cheery yellow and hang a solar system mobile above the hand-me-down crib they get from a guy at the auto-shop Seth works at.

Kate finds work in cleaning the locals’ houses. The women in town are nice, coo over her and knit her plaid booties with matching caps. The blood in Kate’s underwear keeps coming back and one day Kate cramps up so much she collapses while cleaning the O’Niell house’s kitchen. Mrs. O’Niell, an old, sallow woman with one leg finds Kate there half passed-out and bleeding on the floor.

“Oh, my,” Mrs. O’Niell says, helps Kate into the sitting room. “I had bleedin’ like that two with me first lad, Riley. Here, I know what you need.”

She brings Kate a hot cup of tea, the liquid dark and bitterly sweet smelling. Kate looks at the woman with a question in her eyes, and Mrs. O’Niell smiles. “It’ll help the babe,” the woman says.

And no matter how terrified Kate is of all of this, the first time she felt what she thought was the baby kick a couple weeks ago, she fell in love. Maybe that’s just the way it is when you’re becoming a mother–- no matter how much you hate the baby inside of you, what it means, you’re still going to love it. Maybe it’s just a greater instinct all mothers have, no matter how much they aren’t meant to have children.

Kate can no longer bring herself to register this baby with Richie–- she can’t bring herself to think about her begging him to stop and not stop as he held her beneath him, as Santanico smiled and kissed Kate’s mouth with her own red, red lips, saying this was always how things were supposed to go.

This baby is _her_ baby no matter how much Kate wishes it wasn’t, and she loves it, and she drinks the tea and is halfway happy the blood stops.

 

 

_December:_

Seth asks her to marry him on Christmas Eve, three and a half years after their first kiss.

Kate agrees, and they get married in the little church in town. Father Patrick smiles happily at them as they say their vows, and Seth gives Kate a simple ring he later admits is recycled from his marriage to his first wife, Vanessa.

“She never liked it anyhow,” he says sheepishly.

“I like it,” Kate laughs. “Even if my fingers are so swollen it barely fits.”

She calls Ranger Gonzalez afterwards, the only person she’s ever bothered to keep in touch with. He congratulates her, because he doesn’t know she’s pregnant.

“We need help, Kate,” he finally says after all the pleasantries are over. “The Lords are dead, and the world’s in ruins.”

“I know,” Kate answers, doesn’t say _she’s_  ones of the reasons the Lords are dead, that the world’s in ruins.

“Please, come help,” Freddie says desperately.

“I can’t,” Kate whispers, and she hangs up.

That night Seth holds her in bed, and Kate looks out through their small bedroom window at the stars. “I wish we could live in Orion’s Belt,” she whispers.

“Me too,” Seth mumbles sleepily. “I bet it wouldn’t rain so much there.”

Kate laughs, tries not to let it turn into tears when the baby kicks.

 

 

_January:_

Kate turns twenty-two and the ladies in town bake her a cake, throw a baby shower in tandem.

Seth stands off to the side awkwardly with the other men, catches Kate looking and tips his beer towards her with a smirk.

She turns away and holds the little christening dress she got as a present from Mrs. O'Niell tightly in her hands, trying to breathe. 

 

 

_February:_

For Valentine's day she and Seth go exploring Fairy troves just to see if all the myths are true; Kate hears the story about how Fairies leave changeling babies for humans sometimes.

She wishes it was true, and yet she really, really hopes it's not.

 

 

_March:_

She drinks her tea and cleans the houses until one day her belly and ankles are too swollen and Seth insists she stays home, dotes on her like a lap-dog. Sometimes it’s annoying, but more often than not Kate’s just glad he’s still here. She thought that for sure he’d leave her when they found out she was pregnant, knew exactly who the father was.

But Seth stayed, and he promises he’s not going to leave.

“That's  _my_ baby,” he always whispers when Kate mumbles her insecurities in the night. “ _You_ ’re _my_ girl, _my wife_ , so that’s my kid.”

“What if it’s a monster?” Kate says, throat choking up in fear.

“If it’s part you, that’s not possible,” Seth answers her, holding her tight until she falls back to sleep.

And Kate’s home alone one day thinking about this when there’s a knock on the door. She figures it’s Seth, come home for lunch like always, but then she looks at the clock above the fireplace and realizes that it’s too early for that.

Something like adrenaline settles in Kate’s chest, because they don’t get visitors. They’re not stupid– they know that there are other kinds of monsters in the world, that they exist outside of Mexico. Reports of the States going under are flooding the news now, too. Canada’s on its way to follow, and it’s only a matter of time before Kate and Seth are going to have to run again, before there’s going to be no place left to go.

Heart thumping in her chest, Kate gets up and fumbles around in the dresser by the back hall, pulls out her old gun– the one Seth got her their first month together, insisting she have a form of self-defense against (“ _Vampires aren’t the only thing you need to worry about, princess. There’s a damn good amount of human assholes out there, too._ ”)– and tucks it behind her back before creeping cautiously towards the door. She looks out the peephole and blinks, a little old lady standing on the other side.

Slowly, Kate opens the door.

The woman smiles at her behind crooked teeth, the dark skin of her face pulling up into wrinkles around her too-blue eyes. “Top o’ the mornin’,” the woman says.

“Hello,” Kate answers, hand clenching around the gun’s handle.

“I heard ye were the young lass ta talk ta ‘bout cleanin’ houses,” the woman grins, kind and matronly voice to match her figure.

“Oh,” Kate says, swallowing down her nerves. “I’m sorry, miss, but I’m, um…” She stumbles, looks down at her stomach and the old woman does the same.

“ _Ah_ ,” the woman says, her eyes going wide. “Would ye look’a that. How far are ye, lass? Ye look ‘bout ready ta burst.”

“About seven months,” Kate says, suddenly self-conscious from the woman’s comment; she keeps worrying she’s getting fat and unappealing, but Seth’s always assured her she’s as beautiful as the day they met– Kate’s always thought he’s just being kind because he loves her, the serpentine bastard.

“How wonderful,” the old woman says. “May I touch yer babe?”

“Wha–?” Kate starts, but the woman’s hand is already on her stomach; Kate freezes, because usually when she goes to the supermarket or cleans houses and curious women ask to touch her stomach she bats them away. It feels weird to have another’s hand on her, anyone’s beside Seth’s.

It’s been _too long_ since anyone beside Seth has touched her out of kindness, and Kate’s out of practice for it.

“I can feel it kickin’,” the old woman smiles. “Ye’r gunna have quite tha–” Any compliment the woman was about to give staves off, her too-blue eyes gaping in sudden fear as she draws in a quick breath. It’s like she’s taking it from _Kate_ ’s lungs though, all the breath leaving her body until suddenly the woman lurches away, taking quick steps back on her wobbling frame.

“Wha–” Kate tries to say again, gasping and holding onto her chest where it feels like her lungs are going to shrivel up and crumble into dusk like a staked culebra’s.

“ _Leanaí de na amháin dorcha_ ,” the woman says, shaking her head fearfully as Kate tries to step towards her, dark wrinkled hands coming up in defense.            

“What does that mean?” Kate asks, mouth trembling. “What are you talking about?”           

“Ye’r cursed, lass,” the woman says. “That thing in yer stomach is not a babe– it’s a _demon_.”           

With that the old woman turns and flees, leaving Kate there on the doorstep. A soft breeze ruffles by when the woman’s out of view, shakes up the ivy vines on the house and makes Kate’s strained bones ache, gun heavy in her hands as they hang limply at her rounded sides. She swallows down the terror in her throat, the bitter sting of Richie’s smell, his _taste_ , how his mouth fit perfectly against hers.           

She shuts the door and makes herself some tea, sitting there and watching the fire until Seth gets home; she doesn’t tell him about what the woman said.  

 

 

_April:_

“Are you _sure_ we should be doing this?”           

Seth chuckles, drawing Kate’s knees farther apart with his shoulders. “Trust me, sweetheart, the baby doesn’t know what’s happening.”           

“I _know_ that,” Kate snorts, tugging on his hair and earning an aroused growl out of him in response, the opposite of what she was trying to do. “But having sex when pregnant induces labor. What if my water breaks while you’re, um, well…”           

“That’ll be one to laugh about when we’re old,” Seth says, rumbling out another chuckle as he rubs the stubble of his jaw against the inside of Kate’s thighs, making her sigh contentedly. “Besides, you smell even sweeter than usual. I wanna _taste_.”           

“It’s all the damned tea I’m drinking to help with the pregnancy, it–” Kate cuts herself off as Seth’s mouth is suddenly on her, keens the words off because she’s realized being very, very pregnant makes you more sensitive, heightens everything that much more.           

She still would’ve gotten rid of the baby if she could have.           

She tried, at first. The doctor at the clinic thought the abortion was successful, but then three days later and Kate still had morning sickness. She took three tests to make sure, and she was still pregnant. The blood began after that, steady streams that dripped out and made her think maybe this was it, maybe it was finally happening.           

But another few days, more tests, more pink plus signs; that’s when she started flushing her underwear down the toilet, started breaking down into hysterics and planned for what she’d do when Seth left her.           

He never left her, and, eventually, she told him about the blood; he helps her clean up every time he can now, red on his fingertips something they’re both used to.           

“Fuck, you’re so _wet_ , baby girl,” Seth groans, mouth sloping over clit, making an obscene noise as he sucks at her.           

Kate whimpers, hands up above her head as the baby kicks steadily in her stomach.            

Seth works her over with his mouth for a couple more minutes before suddenly he’s kissing up her body to her own mouth, and Kate realizes she even _tastes_ sweeter than usual, letting out a surprised laugh. Gently, Seth helps her onto her side before spooning up behind her, sliding inside of her body slowly until Kate’s all filled up with him, and he’s humming in her ear as he fucks her in deep strokes.           

“ _Christ_ ,” Seth hisses, lacing their fingers together over her stomach. “Fuck, Katie– you feel so good.”           

“Mmm,” Kate says, heavy-headed and close to coming.           

She almost does when they suddenly hear someone screaming outside, Seth growing still behind Kate as both of their ears perk up after a three years’ worth of following that sound into the next bloodbath.          

And the screaming doesn’t stop.

They scramble up and put on their clothes (Kate more slowly than Seth because her belly is just so damn _huge_ ), creep outside with knives and guns and _stakes_ after a small argument of Seth telling Kate to stay inside and her not listening.

The town is on fire.

The town is on fire and people are dying and bleeding out of their mouths and noses and eyes, and there are snakes everywhere.

Seth turns to look at Kate, hoists her up unexpectedly and pushes her back inside, slamming the door closed behind them. He switches the lock into place and doesn’t waste a breath before he’s packing, shoving all their things into suitcases, not even bothering to stop and pick up shattered glass when he knocks over Kate’s favorite vase.

She steps around the sharp shards and leans against the doorway of their bedroom, calm where he is frantic. “Where are we gonna go, Seth?”

“Goddamn China if we have to,” he answers her.

“No,” Kate shakes her head.

“Then _where_?!” Seth nearly screams at her, making her flinch.

“We’re gonna go to Scott,” Kate answers.

 

Scott wrote her two years ago.

He said that he hadn’t made it to Big Ben, but he’d stopped just outside of Liverpool. He said that Carlos is dead, that he killed him himself. He said that he was sorry, that he knew she was sorry too. He said it was safe, that he wanted to be a family again.

Kate had been too caught up in Seth, in hunting, to listen.

Now she tries the number Scott left in his own sloppy handwriting at the bottom of the letter, lets out a sigh of relief when he answers, knows it really is _him_ because even after all this time Kate still recognizes the sound of her brother’s voice.

“I need help,” she whispers.

“I know,” Scott answers. “I’ll be waiting at the terminal.”

 

“Santanico and Richie won’t find you here,” Scott says as he takes them to a small house he has in the countryside– he’s in Spain now, kept the same number in case Kate ever did call him. “I’ve got it protected.”

“You into voodoo now as well as drinkin’ blood?” Seth asks, bitter they’re here at all; he has a stake in one hand and Kate’s swollen waist in the other.

“Sort of,” Scott says, unfazed by Seth’s animosity. “You into my sister now as well as robbing banks?”

Seth snorts, and Kate rolls her eyes as Scott unlocks the front door. Inside it’s warm and cozy, a big fireplace and a large couch in the living room. It smells like Scott’s cooking some kind of bread in the kitchen, and the moonlight streaming through the windows paints everything a pretty dark blue.

“Guest room’s down the hall,” Scott says, pointing past the living room. “You guys’ll have your own bathroom.”

“Cool,” Kate says, doesn’t know what else to say because it’s been _so long_ and there are too many words that haven’t been spoken.

“I have a friend who’s a midwife,” Scott mumbles, casting his eyes awkwardly at Kate’s belly. “She’ll be able to help you through this.”

“Has she ever birthed a Halfling before?” Seth asks, and there’s no malice when he says the word _Halfling_ , just fact. They looked this thing up in old texts, scoured every library from here to Mexico. It’s happened before, and it’s never been good.

“Yes,” Scott says. “They’re just like humans at first, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“And then they turn into monsters,” Kate whispers, her worst fears said out loud.

“Not necessarily,” Scott answers. “But then again, there’s never been a Halfling that’s got the blood of _La Reina_ herself.”

“Thanks,” Seth says dryly. “You’re a real help, kid.”

“You’re welcome,” Scott says, rolling his eyes– Kate forgot how similar his mannerisms are to hers and their father’s when he does that. “Who wants dinner?”

 

“I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose you,” Seth whispers to her that night, when he thinks she’s already asleep.

 _You’ll keep going,_ Kate thinks. _You’ll keep our baby safe._

 

 

_May:_

Seth turns thirty-five and grumbles about it when Kate and Scott try to throw him a party.

"I'm fucking  _old_ ," he complains, rubbing Kate's side because she hasn't been drinking her tea since they left Ireland and, in turn, Mrs. O'Niell's recipe behind-- the blood is back along with terrible cramps and a feeling of being dragged down into the earth.

"You're not  _that_ old," Kate laughs, kissing him silly.

Seth grunts, but kisses her back eventually and concedes to a cake and some beer, but that's it.

He doesn't do party hats. 

 

 

_June:_

She goes into labor during a thunderstorm.

It’s a warm day in spring, right before the official start of summer, and one minute she’s sitting there eating homemade cookies and listening to reports of London burning, then the next her water’s breaking. Only it’s not water, but blood. Lots and lots and lots of blood.

“Oh God, _Kate_ ,” Seth says, trying to help her stand up, lay back down on the couch while Scott calls the midwife he knows. “Kate– _Katie_.”

“I’m okay,” Kate says, only to scream in the next minute as her first contraction hits her, pain so fierce it’s worse than anything she’s ever felt in her entire life.

It takes three days for the baby to come, and by all logical explanation, Kate should be dead by the end of it. She loses gallons and gallons of blood, but it never slows, and her heart never stops. She simply screams with every contraction as her body feels like it’s being torn apart, and then, suddenly, just like that, the midwife– a culebra named Maria who’s so kind Kate wonders if she’s a culebra at all– has the baby out and screaming.

“It’s a girl,” Maria says.

Kate glances at Seth, who’s been here holding her hand this entire time; he’s not looking at her, but at the baby. But she doesn’t expect to see what she does in his gaze– she thought he would be happy like her, but instead he’s just standing there, gaze dim. Kate blinks, looks back over to where Maria’s cutting the umbilical cord, baby still screaming.

“Can I–” Kate starts, throat closing up with leftover exhaustion and emotion. “Let me hold her.”

Maria does, goes to get Scott who’s been patiently waiting outside (Kate had a freak-out the first day and didn’t want her little brother to see her giving birth; he hadn’t seen her naked since they were toddlers and she suddenly wanted to keep it that way in a hormone fueled panic) and let him know that the waiting was over.

Kate holds the baby close to her chest, every rational instinct inside of her telling her to hate this child, this _thing_ that isn’t even human. But then she looks at the baby’s dark curls and smells its soft head, and, much like when the little thing was kicking inside Kate’s womb, love confounds her.

She’s crying before she can stop herself, and this time it’s not from contraction pains, but because she’s happy. “Hello, little girl,” Kate coos, watching as the baby stops crying at the sound of her voice; she looks up with squinty blue eyes and wiggles, her toes her curling and her mouth opening as she coos back. “I’m your mommy,” Kate whispers, turns to look over at Seth. “And that’s your daddy.”

At the word _daddy_ , Seth finally breaks out of whatever stupor he was in. His gaze stops being far away, stops being haunted. He looks at the baby, really _looks_ at it, at the way the little girl in Kate’s arms looks exactly like his brother. And, with a deep breath, Seth leans in and touches his finger to the baby’s cheek, eyes welling up with tears.

“Hi there, kid,” Seth says, voice thick. And for a moment Kate has the irrational fear that maybe she was expecting too much out of him, that words were just words when Kate was still pregnant and there wasn’t evidence of her sins out here in the world. She thinks that maybe this is it, this is where he leaves. But then Seth says, “Your mom’s right– I’m your dad,” like he’s never been more proud to say anything in his entire life. "Your mom and I love you very much, kiddo."

Kate sobs happily, relief washing over her. “Yeah?” she asks.

Seth looks at her, leans in and kisses her softly. “Yeah,” he says.

 

They don’t pick out a name right away.

Maria sticks around to help Kate with nursing a Halfling, saying that her body produces what the baby needs. She gives Kate and Seth a week to bond with the baby before they start speaking technical strategies, what’s best and what isn’t, why Kate isn’t dead though she bled enough during labor for ten people to croak over from.

“The father, he bit you when you were making the child?” Maria asks.

Kate nods, blush forming on her cheeks as Seth looks away at her answer and clears his throat awkwardly.

“He put venom into your system,” Maria says. “It didn’t change you, not all the way. But it’s why you didn’t die when you gave birth. Had he not done that, your body would’ve given out.”

“So it’s like anti-venom?” Seth asks.

“Pretty much,” Scott answers from where he’s sitting at Kate’s side, cooing happily at his new niece; he's very infatuated with the little creature, eyes lighting up every time she smiles at him. “But if Kate ever drinks Richie’s blood, she’s gonna be full-out turned, whether he bites her or not.”

Seth stiffens, a muscle in his jaw twitching that Kate knows means trouble. “But he’s not ever going to find Kate, _is he_.”

“France blacked out yesterday,” Scott says flippantly. “Spain’s gonna go down soon. But, no, if we stay here, Richie and Santanico can’t find us.”

There’s palpable tension in the room after that, because it sounds like Scott isn’t exactly sure of his own words. If there’s one thing Kate’s learned over her years in dealing with the supernatural, it’s that everything has its loophole. Seth knows that too, and by the way his hand lingers protectively on her shoulder as she feeds the baby, she has a feeling that he’s about to have a panic attack even though it’s been months since his last one.

“So, have you thought of names?” Maria asks then, cleverly trying to change the subject.

“I like Natasha,” Scott says.

“That’s only because you have a hard-on for Black Widow,” Kate scoffs.

“Na-uh,” Scott says, sticking his tongue out her.

She mirrors the motion back to him. “I’m not naming my kid Natasha Gecko. That sounds stupid.”

“Gecko?” Seth asks, his eyes open wide.

Kate nods. “We’re married now, remember? My name’s Kate Gecko, your name’s Seth Gecko– our kid’s last name should be Gecko.”

And she doesn’t expect the sudden smile on Seth’s face, the way it grows and grows until he’s laughing from in, leaning in to kiss her sloppy and warm. “What’s a name you like?” he asks Kate.

For a moment, Kate wonders what name she really _does_ like best. She thinks of women in her family and has nothing. She thinks of women in the books and television shows and movies she likes and has nothing. She thinks of old hunters they worked with, brave women who sacrificed themselves for the greater good, but even those names don’t seem quite right.

Sighing, Kate has a sad, regretful second where she wishes her dad was here. He’d know the perfect name, she’s sure. He always talked about how he never wanted Kate to grow up, but also couldn’t wait to be a grandfather. “You’re gonna make such a good mother one day, Katie-Cakes,” he always smiled. “But don’t let that go giving you any ideas. Not until you’re married, and even then, not until you’re thirty.”

“Why thirty?” Kate laughed.

“Because then I’ll be too old to have a heart-attack over the fact my baby girl’s got a baby of her own,” Jacob joked. “I’ll just have a heart-attack ‘cause I’m old.”

Kate smiles fondly at those memories, glad that after years of blaming herself and remembering only the bad things, she’s finally gotten to the point where she can remember her father without wanting to break down and never get back up again. She can remember his smile, the twinkle in his blue eyes like the baby’s that Kate’s now holding. She can remember his stupid dad jokes, and his faith, and his courage.

She can remember how he told her she has a light inside of her and to never let it go out, and that she helped him find his faith again, helped him go be in Heaven with Mama. That was the only thing that got her out of that Godforsaken temple-– her dad’s strength in choosing to die had given Kate her strength in choosing to live, to stumble out of the dusk and into the light.

“Dawn,” Kate says, smiling down at her daughter softly. “Her name is Dawn.”

          

 

 

 

 


End file.
